The majority of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive teams competing at the IEM Katowice Minor were invited to the event's Europe qualifier, with only Virtus.pro, Heroic and Team Kinguin failing to qualify. They were out-placed by Team Vitality, Valiance and Windigo Gaming during qualifiers.

The two groups of four teams each will compete to determine who gets a spot at the IEM Katowice Major in February. The group stage will be played according to the usual GSL format, in which each group plays out a double elimination bracket. The first round of each bracket will be best-of-one, followed by best-of-three matches. The top two teams from each group advance to playoffs.

In the playoffs' double elimination bracket, all matches are best-of-three. The two teams that win the upper and lower bracket will qualify directly for the Katowice Major as New Challengers. The team that earns third place at the minor will head to a minor play-in, where the third place teams from each regional minor will compete for the last two spots in the New Challengers stage.

IEM Katowice will be the first Major of 2019, with $1 million in the prize pool.